


2,190

by holtcest



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/F, F/M, Holtcest, Incest, Love and Loss, M/M, Multi, Parent/Child Incest, Sibling Incest, sex as coping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-05
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-07-07 04:19:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15900759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holtcest/pseuds/holtcest
Summary: The Holts come together in pieces.





	2,190

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't stop myself from spitting this out at like 3am the other day, so please take it.

Colleen holds her daughter close to her chest, rocks her back and forth on the living room floor as the news reel plays in an awful loop, feeding endlessly into itself. Katie is gripping her tight enough that she fears finger-shaped bruises will dot her shoulders for the weeks to come; her tears soaking through the thin cotton of her top with ease. The absolutely pitiful sounds both of them make as they weep create a feedback chamber in the dark of the room, called into the hollows of ears and the chambers of their hearts. Colleen’s chest aches, heart breaking, as they both now know they are the remnants of a once whole puzzle.

It’s almost surprising when she feels the soft, shaking press of Katie’s lips on her cheek.

Pulling back for just a moment to address the crying girl, Katie cradles her mother’s head in two small hands, red-faced, hiccuping between the soft cries for the loss they both feel. Colleen leans to rest their foreheads together, and her daughter leans in again to press another, much more nervous kiss to the corner of her mouth.

Colleen knows she shouldn’t.

There’s a tense moment, where her last child’s sob makes her  _lurch_ , and she’s chasing her daughter’s lips with the gentle caress of her own; all she can taste is salt and the bitterness of their shared loss. Katie’s arms are insistent now, gripping and tugging and dragging her up the couch and out of her modest sleeping clothes. It only twists her guts for a moment when Katie’s hands are tugging a ratty old t-shirt ( _her son’s_ ) over her head to press small, soft breasts against her own. The noise she makes is relieved enough that Colleen can ignore the  _viledigustingwrong_  feeling that makes the skin on the back of her neck burn.

It’s wrong in more than one way, Katie  _knows_ , but the weight on her shoulders is easier to bear together, pressed too-close. Kisses are pressed to hollow collarbones, to the pulses of their once shared life, muffled sobs turning soft and gentle. Their breaths mingle, their tears ebb and give way to hesitant, cautious moans that have Colleen wishing things were different, that she hadn’t tainted their relationship in the wake of such harrowing familial loss; hadn’t so easily been swayed by her weeping daughter. In the morning, the sun is stifled by clouds and shades, casting the room in an eerie glow. Katie is cradled against her, bare as the day she was born; Colleen just wants to go back to sleep, pretend the past day was all just a terrifying dream.

Neither of them have the luxury to do so.

* * *

 

Matt had never clung to him like this.

Sam holds his son close, the cell they share dark, cold-- he can feel the shiver wrack the young man’s spine as they huddle together. Shiro was taken from them again, dragged unconscious from the room, and fear is the only thing keeping the pair of them from trying to run. Where could they even  _go_ , if they got lucky and managed to escape? Neither of them were built for fighting and they knew it, and if everything else in space is just as cruel and violent as the aliens they’ve had the misfortune of meeting, then it would be safer to just stay put. Matt stuffs his face into the hollow of his throat, and Sam’s reminded of the first time his son broke an arm.

He’d gripped him like this then, too. Eyes too dry for tears long drained, fingers digging into the tender muscles of his forearms. Curled up like a child too young to walk, cornered, scared,  _helpless_. Sam hums and presses a shaking kiss to his crown; Matt pitches forward as if to bury himself completely in his father’s chest, a grave that feels like home, the only familiarity in a world new and cold.

Days, weeks, months pass.

They overhear that Sam will be moved to a scientific research camp, put to work making ships and super-weapons, all manner of awful things for the aliens who owned him. Sam’s destitute-- he spends the next hour leaning against the cold metal wall, head in his hands, elbows propped on bruised knees. Matt crawls to him like a creature wounded, curls up against his side; but not before grabbing one of his hands, entwining their fingers. Sam chokes on tears he didn’t think he had left in him, and Matt’s wiping them away, smearing the dirt that had gathered on his father’s cheeks. Then, with a quivering hand, Matt kisses his palm, presses and pushes until his face is obscured by it.

It felt like  _goodbye_. 

Sam doesn’t know how it happened, or why, but they’re undulating against each other in frantic, panic-driven rolls of hips; Matt’s biting into the flesh of Sam’s chapped lips to keep them both quiet. The footfalls down the hall are distant and forgotten in the wake of his inevitable departure; and by the time Sam is dragged from his son’s arms, all that’s left on his son’s face is grim acceptance.

The sucked-on bruise under Sam’s collar burns his skin.

* * *

 

Katie grapples him like she’s dying.

Her helmet flies off in a fit of mania, and Matt’s not much better as he nearly tears his cloak off in his panic to get their skin touching. Her hair is so  _short_  and it feels like he’s looking in a mirror, kissing along his sister’s jaw and flicking his tongue against the beat of her pulse. This is both familiar and not; Katie’s confident where she was once a shivering, shaking mess, pawing at his chest but only to get his armor off strengthened shoulders. No, she’s different this time-- hardened by war and stress; sinew strung and jaw sharp as she pushes him to the floor near the poor alien they slaughtered. Matt’s tossing the clunky pieces of her armor aside, pulling the zip on Katie’s flight suit, and she only pauses once more to get his pants off.

They fuck like they’re  _dying_ , like Matt is going to disappear all over again and he doesn’t blame her for the angry bites she digs into his throat. Whispered apologies of his broken promises slows her hips, makes her cry with sorrow long turned bitter; it churns his gut to see Katie clutch at herself as if she was falling apart at the seams. All Matt can do is pull her down to him, buck into her between reassurances that he loves her, how sorry he is that he couldn’t be there for her, that she even had to go to space in the first place. He never wanted this for her.

When she’s let the last of her angry,  _relieved_  tears drip into Matt’s hair, his cheeks, they crumble into each other with a noise that echos in the base he’s made into his home. Katie traces the scar on his face, the one that curls around his chest and down his hip, and Matt sates himself in the warmth of her embrace. Nothing compares to the way his soul eases when Katie kisses his sternum, when she taps out the beat of his heart against his skin, coaxes him into a hug.

They leave with bites bloodied on pale skin.

 

* * *

 

The three of them hardly had a moment alone yet.

Sam’s children have aged, look different and  _new_  and unusual at the same time. Like ghosts that gained life, one on either side of him as they recount tales of their travels. He’s lucky to be alive, even luckier to see both his kids are safe; for now, he can ignore the way their hands are linked across his abdomen as they talk. Matt tells him how Shiro gave him an escape, how he joined a rebellion and makes a few laughable  _Star Wars_  references before Katie squeezes his hand to get him to stop. Sam’s daughter talks more about his wife, her mother, how she had to leave her behind to find them. How she cut her hair, changed her name, broke so many laws that Sam isn’t sure if he should be proud or enraged.

The room is dark, save for the faint blue glow of the lightstrips around the room. Katie is turning her head into his shoulder, leg thrown over his own, and Matt follows suit not long after with a grunt. Sam loops and arm around each of them, squeezes, sighs; maybe things won’t be so bad in the future, now that they found each other. Just as sleep makes his vision blur, he feels Matt inch up his side until he can feel hot puffs of his breath on his throat-- he makes a noise that’s close to an admonishment. But his son keeps on, bites at the skin that his sleepwear exposes, and he’s about to say something when he feels Katie shift beside them.

Their hands are still linked, but her mouth mimics his devilish son, and things click into place for Sam.

Katie is just as talented with her mouth, if not a bit more enthusiastic with youth. It’s almost overwhelming as their hands wander, drift over his sides to his hips, and excuses fly through his head for how he could possibly explain this. It’s still a bit nauseating, but he loves his kids, and if this is what they  _need_  to feel safe, loved-- Sam was never good at denying either of them anything. There’s a different atmosphere than when he and Matt had frantically been going at each other in the Galra cell, something akin to tenderness; Katie mouths along the curve of his jaw and he feels overwhelmed.

It feels like only moments before Sam’s holding his daughter to his chest, her shoulders sharp and textured with scars against his skin; Matt’s guiding her hips and Sam ignores the way his heart stutters ( _twists with something ugly,_ ) when he pushes into Katie’s body. He never had wanted to hear how strung out her moans were, how well her calves carried her weight as she moves back in tandem with his thrusts; but he’s here all the same, nipping at the jut of her shoulder while Katie groans. Sam can feel where Matt’s thumbing her, helping her reach for greater heights, and if he didn’t realize that his children were intimate before, the way they kiss like old lovers surely would have convinced him so.

Maybe too quickly, he loses himself inside of Katie’s core, leaves her a mess that Matt seems more than happy to follow-up on. Sam almost feels as if he’s  _intruding_  when Matt pushes her against the mattress, lithe legs swung up over his shoulders as he chases his own completion. Katie’s reaching for Sam, one hand buried in Matt’s hair while she stretches her arm out towards where he sits a little bit away from them.

It doesn’t feel so long before they’re waking up the next day.

* * *

 

It’s a long month where Colleen knows, but can’t see.

Her husband’s returned, healthy,  _alive_ , and she’s been as patient as she can be. Sam looks different, the years he’s been lost to her aging him and she can’t help but collapse into his arms. Her fingers trace the new lines that sit heavy between his brows; Sanda says something she can’t process, and days pass where all they can do is work and sleep. Colleen cuts her hair short again, tries to be happy, but all she can really feel is how her heart aches to see her children again.

A month in, Colleen finds the time to drag Sam into a empty room, pushing him against the wall like a horny teenager instead of a mother twice over. It’s as natural as breathing, as the unconscious beat of her heart; Sam laughs into her mouth and flips them around. He seems rejuvenated, more passionate than he had been in the years since he left, and maybe its stress, or war, or any manner of awfulness that he went through that makes their closeness feel like a cherished gift instead of a flight of fancy. Her skirt is hiked up to her stomach, Sam’s hands gripping, rubbing, rolling her against him in a steady rhythm that has her stifling moans into her palm.

Colleen tries not to think about her son, still lost in space-- or of her daughter, how the last real intimacy they shared was sinful and  _wrong_  and made her broken in every way that counts. He slows, she keens, and they fall silent in the dark room, save for the heavy breaths they don’t bother to hide from each other. Colleen’s feet touch the ground again, and Sam’s there to keep her steady-- she leans forward and soaks his shirt with tears.

Maybe someday they’d be whole again.

* * *

 

The moment Katie sees her parents, she feels small.

Awaiting the wrath of her mother for running away, she lingers a bit closer to her friends a little longer, watches Lance rush into his family’s arms and offers Hunk a pat on the shoulder before she sprints off towards where her family waits. Colleen’s gained silver hairs, the crease of her frown deeper than all the years ago that she saw her last. There’s only a brief sigh of anger before her mother looks like she might cry-- Katie’s rushing into her open arms and crushing the slight woman with the ferocity of her embrace. Apologies tumble out of her mouth without any thought, voice as watery as her eyes. Sam rubs her back with a different, other kind of tenderness that has her cries turn soft, until they separate and go about their day.

In the dead of night, Katie sneaks from her room, followed by the dim lights of the hall to where her parents slept.

It feels childish, crawling into her parent’s bed like this, but Katie needs to be close; to assure herself that they’re  _alive_ and as  _safe_ as they can be, all things considered. Her mother is still awake, lifting the edge of the covers so Katie can clamor up like she’d had a nightmare as a much younger, more innocent girl. For a while she lays there, squished between Sam and Colleen in the dark, before she turns to press her head against her mother’s chest. Despite only having done this once before, Colleen gives in easier; traces patterns into Katie’s side as she lets the girl unbutton her top to litter the freckled skin of her chest with kisses. Katie mouths at the tender skin of her neck, trails trembling lips to her breasts with only a brief moment of hesitation.

Katie hardly has time to savor the way Colleen bites her lip to keep herself quiet before she feels Sam shift next to her, hand finding the swell of her hip and pulling her back from her mother’s chest. Katie can’t see their faces, but there’s a pause where Colleen nods and she can feel Sam’s beard against her throat as he kisses her skin. Like this, sandwiched between her parents, Katie lets herself be guided, coaxed into spreading out for wandering hands and tender kisses that leave her both breathless and trembling like a leaf in the wind. They shift, Sam lifting Katie into Colleen’s arms so she can be laid beneath her mother, kissed and loved and  _wet_  when Colleen seeks out her core. 

Something changes when Katie hears the hitch in Colleen’s breath, sees her face turn a harsh red before the gentle touches on her folds turns harder, curling into the tight heat of her body. Sam is just barely visible where he’s mounting her mother, the only noises between them ragged pants and slaps of sweat-slicked skin. 

The night feels too short.

* * *

 

After all is said and done, and Matt returns, they hold each other too tightly.

To be all together on Earth, to be  _home--_ Katie has a hard time containing herself as Matt catches her gaze. They’re alone for now, lingering in the room she was given, shoving off clothes and kicking off boots; his hair is so long that she’s reminded, vaguely, of how hers used to look when she was younger. But there’s not really time to think about it when Matt has a hand searching along her inner thighs, and Katie would rather not waste what precious little time they have together reminiscing about the past.

He has her against the wall when there’s a knock on the door, and Matt chokes out a question she can’t hear over the rush of blood in her ears. The door opens and Sam looks them over once, twice, before slipping in himself and diverting some of Matt’s attention away from his sister’s body. When had this felt as easy as saying hello? Did separation across galaxies, across  _lifetimes_ , really change them so much that life simply couldn’t continue any other way? Katie bites her lip and moves herself against Matt feverishly, peeks through the heavy lids of her eyes to watch them lazily kiss. At some point, Colleen slides into the room with only a momentary look of disgust; Katie’s pleased to see how quickly they can fall apart with each other. 

It’s both heavy and freeing, being held so tightly in a tangle of limbs, moving in harmony once thought impossible by anything but divinity. Like a fractured soul returning to itself, mending and healing. The Holts spend the long night hours tracing scars and skin, syncing off-tempo heartbeats until they collapse on a bed that’s far too small for four people. Until the distance that had grown astronomical between them is indistinguishable from a star gone supernova; blinding, heated-- an exhilarating experience. 

Lives like theirs can never return to a semblance of normalcy, but it had never suited them anyway.


End file.
